John Kentish

John Kentish (June 26, 1768 - March 6, 1853) was an English unitary minister. Kentish was born in St. Albany, Hertfordshire, on June 26, 1768. His father, once a draper, was the youngest son and, ultimately, the heir to Thomas Kentish, who in 1723 was the supreme sheriff of Hertfordshire. His mother was Hannah (d. 1793), daughter and heiress of Kizer Vanderplan. After graduating from John Worsley’s school in Hertford, he entered the Daventry Academy in 1784 under the direction of Thomas Belsham, William Broadbent, and Eliezer Cogan. In September 1788, he moved with two fellow students to New College in Hackney, dissent, as a result of the prohibition of Daventry's proxies on any use of written prayers at school. In the fall of 1790, he left Hackney to become the first minister of the newly formed Unitarian community in Plymouth Dock (now Devonport), Devonshire. A chapel was built on George Street (opened by Theophilus Lindsay on April 27, 1791) and a prayer book compiled by Kentish and Thomas Porter from Plymouth. In 1794, he replaced Porter as Minister of the Treville Street community in Plymouth after Porter emigrated to America. In the same year, Kentish wrote a terrible letter in which he condemned the refusal of the trustee of the George Assembly House in Exeter to allow Western unitary society to hold its annual meetings there, presumably on the basis of religious prejudice. It was reprinted in 1800 with the name of the recipient and the assembly house as “Confirmation of the principles by which several Unitarians turned into societies,” and became widespread. In 1795, he moved to London to serve as an afternoon preacher at the Hackney Gravel Quarry, adding to this office in 1802 the position of morning preacher at St. Thomas Chapel in Southwark. On January 23, 1803, he organized the New Congregation pastoral service in Birmingham, serving from 1804 to 1815 next to Joshua Tulmin. In 1832, Kentish refused compensation, but retained the position of pastor and continued to preach often until 1844. Kentish died on March 6, 1853 after a short illness.